#Brentrance: Mastercard Buys VocaLink, Now Rules Britannia ACH

MasterCard thinks the U.K. is a jolly good place to do business. With its $920 million purchase of processor VocaLink, the card brand gets a firm owned by 13 U.K. banks that did 11 billion transactions in 2015, but that gaudy number might be the milk and sugar in the cup of tea that is a platform it coveted.

The same day Visa made an ACH-related move by partnering with PayPal so the two mega brands putting their money in bank accounts is no coincidence. ACH represents 50 percent of total electronic payment flows across the world's 50 largest countries.